I just finished listening to Ender’s Game. I’ve listened to it before, but I was bored waiting for a James Bond book to arrive via Inter Library Loan, so I got Ender’s Game. If you haven’t read/listened to it, it’s a very good story, though it’s definitely not a kids book (though the protagonist is a child). The audiobook version was read by an ensemble cast. And they got it wrong AGAIN. This is not the first time I’ve listened to a book by an ensemble cast (I bought a copy of Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett, but got the Fantastic Audio version instead of the ISIS Audio Books version – boy was that a mistake). Ender’s Game is BETTER, but still not great. At least the male voices are close to each other, but they still switch around. The only smart thing they did was to consistently use one actress to play the females (pretty much only his sister Valentine). It’s tough to keep track of who is taking in the asides because they don’t use the same voice for Col Graff between the main story and the asides. (So far, the only ensemble cast I’ve heard that got it right was the DeathStalker books by Graphic Audio.) The story is good, and if you like it I would suggest reading the books in the Bean Quartet (aka Ender’s Shadow series.) Do not read Speaker for the Dead through Children of the Mind, unless you like listening to meaningless psychological babble. I think Orson Scott Card said it best at the end of Ender’s Game, with a quote from Ender himself (when talking with his sister about his biography) … “I’ve a better idea. Take it up to the day we won the final battle. Stop it there. Nothing that I’ve done since then is worth writing down.”
Story: 4
Audio elements: 2
Content: Graphic violence